The Fundamentals of Digitalisation of Works in the Historical Art of Projection as Applied to Media History, Methodology and Media Technology

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Martin Loiperdinger; Professorin Dr. Claudine Moulin
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2013 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 237764916

The aim of the research project is to create fundamental conditions for researching the historical art of projection. Its development into the first sequential visual mass media at the end of the 19th century established the projection of images onto a canvas or screen as the universal technology which decisively contributed to the rise of films after 1900. Nevertheless, the art of projection has hardly been researched because the glass images projected in performances and lectures at the time have survived mostly in private collections, that is, are not publicly accessible.With the aid of methods and tools of the digital humanities this obstacle to research can be removed effectively. This requires generating digital source editions which consider the unique performativity of the art of projection as a performance medium. The application of international Standards allows the digital access to the works of the art of projection without temporal or regional limitations. Therefore the research project will develop fundamentals of digitalisation of works in the historical art of projection as applied to media history, methodology and media technology to create conditions for the first international web portal of the art of projection as it applies to media studies and information technology.This web portal is to permit the shared access to this visual cultural legacy. It provides a virtual research environment to make works of the art of projection accessible in the form of critical digital source editions for research into media history and for interested scholars in the arts and social sciences. To this end, the project will develop appropriate methods of digital reproduction and establish standards for compiling, determining meta data and archiving. In order to illustrate the performative potential of the surviving glass images in period performances, the project will develop various modes of digital reconstruction of projected slide series and projection effects at variable speeds with spoken texts and music.As a result, two indispensible requirements for the international web portal of the art of projection will be available at the end of the project:1. The digital manual with the fundamentals of methodology and media history, including the obligatory and optional content elements of the source editions, digitalisation standards and processes of media technology: The handbook data (texts, illustrations, animated function models) are to be transferred directly into the web portal digital services (instructions, retrievable context, help system).2. The virtual research environment is to enable third parties to generate the content of the web portal themselves with editorial supervision.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants